La mansión de los muertos vivientes

Mansion of the Living Dead (1982)

* (out of 4)

I've seen around eighty or so Jess Franco flicks and this one here was probably my most desired to see. An unofficial entry into the Blind Dead series, this film takes place at a deserted hotel where four waitresses have gone for a vacation. Soon, the living dead Templars show up to sacrifice them. As is to be expected, there's all sorts of nudity and lesbian sex because the cast members, which includes Lina Romay and Eva Leon, (from Naschy's House of the Psychotic Women) are just downright horny. We get various sex scenes, which are sometimes erotic but after a while they become quite tiresome. As for the horror elements, they are incredibly weak. In the interview on the disc Franco admits he hates living dead films and he doesn't even like Romero. Franco should probably watch this film again and see how bad it is. Every single item here is deadly dull and the story makes no sense whatsoever. I actually kept myself somewhat entertained by trying to figure out what must have been in Franco's mind while coming up with the story here.

A view on a pristine, impeccable beach. Suddenly the camera zooms onto an ugly, rusty iron drum. Behind a facade of beauty, a perfect holiday site, decay has set in. It's this surreal symbolism that often keeps a Jess Franco movie above the average exploitation flicks, and "Mansion of the Living Dead" continued his best works of the 70s better than most of his movies from the 80s. It was shot at Gran Canaria in a deserted hotel, where 4 waitresses arrive for their holidays. Although they are assured the hotel is almost fully booked, they meet nobody and they sense there is something wrong here. In a long, beautiful scene without any dialog, one of the girls walks to an old church, while a stormy wind rings the church bell and shakes the branches of the palm trees. As a counterpoint to this slowly created spooky atmosphere, Franco introduces a crazy gardener for comic relief and of course shows what the girls do in their hotel room for the carnal element of the show ;-). But horror prevails as an order of undead satanic monks - many viewers feel reminded of the Spanish classic "Tombs of the Blind Dead" here - tries to get hold of the chicas for sacrifice... Not perfect, but recommendable.

I had high hopes for this one. After watching the excellent Macumba Sexual (Made around the same time, with the same locations and most of the same actors) I was expecting this one to be as good as that one. But it wasn't. Mansion of the Living Dead is one of the worst movies Jess Franco ever directed. The plot had potential, but it's not handle well. The pace is very slow and even the sex scenes drag a bit. Also, the make up of the monks is awful!

But the movie also have some good things, like the beautiful, paradise-like beach, which gives the film a certain atmosphere, very creepy in some scenes. Also good is lead actress Lina Romay, looking very hot especially in the scenes where she walks completely naked through the hotel.

From the boring sex scenes (I can't believe I just say that!) to the embarrassing attempt to create a story make this movie one of Franco's worst. Not recommended at all. Check out "Macumba Sexual" (1983) or "Gemidos de Placer" (1983) instead.

As I am a true adept of all pulp, trash and schlock, I really like some of Jesús Franco's work (some directed under pseudonyms) - Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy, Venus in Furs, Count Dracula, Eugenie de Sade, Mondo cannibale and others are well made and entertaining movies empowered by the powers of cheese and pulp, some starring actors like Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski. Sadly, La mansión de los muertos vivientes or Mansion of the Dead is no such trashy and spicy piece - neither the art of horror nor the powers of Venus are strong in this one. The cinematography is also not good. A few days ago I put this one on my screen and cannot say if I ever watched this one before ore not. Anyway, this time I used the fast forward button rather freely and wondered the whole time why Franco made this boring and tasteless piece. To all who do not know his work, don't watch this one (first), put some of the movies I mentioned on your screen, or try other ones, on Imdb the maestro got directing credits for 206 movies...

Jesus Franco is a director who has made dozens of horror, soft-porn crossovers that all have in common that they are being really bad ones. If you ever wondered what sort of movies Ed Wood would be making, would he still be alive today, all you have to do is pick up any random Jesus Franco movie.

By credit this movie is a remake of the 1971 Spanish horror-classic "La noche del terror ciego" but quite frankly, this movie has very little or nothing to do with that movie. Seriously, don't watch this movie expecting an horror, for this movie is more all about its nudity and lesbian fondling than about any horror. As a matter of fact there aren't even scares or graphic killings in this movie. Just a couple of hooded men standing around and occasionally, not so graphically, raping a girl.

As always, the story is an absolute mess and very little in the movie is making sense. The way the entire movie is progressing is laughable and just very far from convincing. It has some really stupid characters in it, that you just don't ever care about. Jesus Franco doesn't seem to be able to see and fill up any gaping plot-holes, or he just simply doesn't care about it. Either way it's a bad thing.

And yes well, then there are some of the sex sequences that literally come out of nowhere often and show absolutely nothing. I don't even think that the lovers of soft-core porn flicks are going to get excited by anything that gets shown or done in this movie.

Again Jesus Franco uses his own wife Lina Romay in the movie as the main lead. Like all of the other girls she spends most of her time walking around naked in the movie. The girls in this movie are either being naked, having sex with each other, getting raped by a man, or talking each others head of, like a bunch of annoying, loud, naive, helpless, chicken.

I must say though that I still enjoy watching older Franco movies better than the newer ones, that he is still making this present day and age. At least these movies still had a bit of style over them and got shot at location instead of in a studio or in the garden of one of the cast-members.

Trademark bad Jesus Franco stuff.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/